Have Canada’s Medical Marijuana Regulations Grown Into a Mess of Tangled Weed(s)?

By
Lindsay Jolivet, Yahoo! News
on June 18, 2013

The path to controlling marijuana in Canada could soon lead the federal government through a jungle of potted plants tucked into basements, particularly in British Columbia.

New federal regulations announced this week are meant to better control medical production, stopping legal grow operations in private homes.

But according to reports, implementing the changes could mean dismantling an underground industry in B.C., whereby some legal growers are supporting their families selling weed on the streets.

Thirty minutes on Skype with a doctor launched a B.C. man’s marijuana business that nets him about $120,000 a year, a licensed grower told the CBC.

His basement full of marijuana plants is perfectly legal under the “Personal Use Production” licence the government issued him and thousands of other Canadians. But then, police say, many of these growers sell the drug to a middle man, who sells it to others illegally.

For police officers trying to navigate these tangled laws, enforcement at the receiving end is like trying to stop smoke from filling a room. It isn’t working, they told the broadcaster, in part because it’s very hard to track, inspect and regulate grow-ops in private homes.

The new regulations should end that problem when the government stops producing and selling medical marijuana and revokes permission to grow weed at home, licensing only select growers.